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Arlington courier service grows by focusing on lab specimens only

April 25, 2016 - Jerry Knauss, president and founder of LABExpress, is building the company's headquarters in Arlington and moving the business from a pair of leased buildings. (Mike Brown/The Commercial Appeal)(Photo: The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

The new $1.5 million headquarters that Laboratory Express will start building next week in Arlington helps prove that less is more.

The 19-year-old courier company, which nicknames itself LabExpress, specializes in transporting blood, urine and other laboratory specimens between clinical and lab sites across the nation.

Founder and president Jerry Knauss has at his disposal a transit network of 16 full-time employees, about 1,150 independent contractors, their vehicles, and the cargo holds of commercial airlines. The company operates in 500 markets and 42 states.

"People see the word 'courier' and we get ridiculous calls to pick up widgets,'' Knauss said this week. "Widgets'' is his term for any shipments that are not medical or veterinary specimens.

Some have tried tempting him to expand the business model to include other types of shipments as a way to increase business. "I've been asked a thousand times to branch out,'' Knauss said.

But the 39-year-old Knauss has been steadfast in remaining specialized. "I learned a long time ago to be really good at one thing and not just OK at a bunch of things,'' Knauss said.

The approach has paid off. "It's going well,'' he said. "... We've really had some substantial growth over the last three years.''

Last year, LabExpress revenue reached $18 million; this year Knauss wants to have $24 million to $25 million in revenue, he said.

The shipping and handling of lab specimens requires an expertise as well as special equipment and work regimen. The specimens often must be kept at specific, cooler temperatures.

LabExpress uses insulated containers, dry ice, cool packs and other special equipment to protect the integrity of the specimens.

The company for the last four years has leased two small office buildings at 11870 Cranston just off Airline Road in Arlington, a Memphis suburb. Next week, site work should start on a new headquarters building about five miles away at 3211 Cypress Drive in Arlington's Cypress Ridge Business Park, near U.S. 64.

The UrbanArch architecture firm has designed a modern building of 10,200 square feet, substantially larger than the current headquarters.

Just as important as the added space will be how the new space is designed for work flow. The existing configuration of employee offices in two buildings is too chopped up to be as efficient as Knauss wants.

LabExpress relies heavily on commercial airlines, with couriers often driving the specimens from clinics to the airport. The company does business with 39 different laboratories across the nation.

"People think it's local labs,'' Knauss said. "But nine times out of 10 it's not... We'll pick it up from hospitals, clinics, veterinary clinics, kidney dialysis units. We keep it temperature-controlled. We'll transport it to whatever lab to test.''

Knauss went to high school at Raleigh-Egypt and graduated from Christian Brothers University. He majored in finance, intending to become an investment banker. But when the market crashed in the late 1980s, he looked for other work and landed with a truck-shipping company.

That experience gave him insight into the "major problem'' many of the national labs had with the proper handling and timing involving specimen shipments.

He first opened a specimen-shipping business in Houston, Texas, before moving back home to Memphis.

Read or Share this story: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/money/industries/medical/2016/04/26/arlington-courier-service-grows-by-focusing-on-lab-specimens-only/90512076/